Category: For Teachers

Paper Tweetup- Success!

Kelly Tenkely29 Comments on Paper Tweetup- Success!5813 views

Yesterday, I held a tweetup at a local coffee shop to teach teachers about Twitter using…paper!  The idea was to give teachers, of varying tech levels, a concrete way to learn the ins and outs of Twitter before actually jumping in with the technology.  I wanted teachers to really understand the social nature of Twitter before worrying about the technical aspects.

It was a huge success!  Our biggest problem of the day was the noise of ice being crushed for smoothies, if you have ever run a tech training this is pretty small bananas!

You can read (and watch) about how I planned for this Tweetup here.  As teachers arrived, I handed them a paper Twitter packet.  In the packet they found a half sheet screen shot of a Twitter wall with explanation call outs of important features, a name tag with their @ Twitter name, a password card for their classroom twitter account, an envelope with “DM” printed on the front, a stack of sticky notes with their Twitter handle on it, and a pen.  I created a paper Twitter wall using that huge sticky note chart paper and stuck it to the wall of the coffee shop.  After explaining how paper tweeting would work and giving them a run down of some of the Twitter lingo (wall, follow, DM, hash tag, RT, @ reply), I let them start “tweeting”.  #edchat was going on at the same time.  I knew that these teachers wouldn’t be ready to jump into that conversation online in their first venture out into the Twitter world, so I took the conversation to them in our paper tweeting.  I gave the teachers the same topic and invited them to paper tweet responses.  They wrote out a response and stuck it to one of the paper Twitter walls.  I read the tweets out loud as they came in so that the teachers could write some @ replies.  Everyone seemed to love passing private notes back and forth using the DM envelopes.

It was a fun time of socializing and I think everyone grasped the power of Twitter as a communication tool.  At the end of the session I let them login to their actual Twitter accounts and practice sending a few tweets.  This worked out really well because they already had lists to follow that I created for them and all of their accounts are already following each other.  They had a built-in PLN to work with as soon as they logged on.  This helped a lot!  Today teachers will be taking Twitter into their classrooms and using it with students.

Result of the paper tweetup: success!


Class Blogs: Blogging, virtual classroom, LMS, and more!

Kelly Tenkely6 Comments on Class Blogs: Blogging, virtual classroom, LMS, and more!4659 views

What it is: Class Blogs is a fabulous new way for you to easily create and manage FREE classroom blogs!  What makes Class Blogs so wonderful are all the extras that are built in.  For example, with Class Blogs you can create a virtual classroom space.  With just a few simple steps, you can create an online meeting space for your students to learn and discuss in.  Blogs can be used to post assignments; when you post an assignment to your teacher blog, students can submit the assignment and a pingback will be sent to your blog.  Class Blogs even has features that utilize SMS so that you can send a text message to students and the ability to host lesson plans complete with supporting resources!  Class blogs really offers more than just a blogging platform, it offers many Learning Management System (LMS) solutions making it a great all-in-one tool!  Here are just a few of the ways you can use Class Blogs:

  • Class Blogs – Teachers and students can create blogs to help facilitate classroom learning or the blog can be an extension of the classroom conversation.
  • Learning Logs – Learning logs are sites created by teachers for the purpose of creating online assignments for students. Students can then answer the questions and submit the assignments once they are completed.
  • Learning Management System (LMS) – Teachers can create a blog and use it as a learning management system. Teachers can post online courses and students can submit their assignments (through blog posts) for the course online as well. These assignments can be viewed by the instructor, the instructor can submit feedback, and the instructor can grade the student’s assignment online. Both the teacher and his/her students must have blogs in order to create a successful LMS.
  • Electronic Portfolio (E-Portfolio) – An e-portfolio is a valuable learning and assessment tool which includes but is not limited to a collection of resources and accomplishments that represent the individual. Moreover, it is the author’s personal reflection on the work included in the e-portfolio that creates a meaningful learning experience.
  • Web Conferencing/Virtual Classroom – Teachers/professors have the ability to create meeting rooms or virtual classrooms from the backend of their site. You can upload your presentations, chat with students, public/private chat, webcam, and even share your desktop.

How to integrate Class Blogs into the classroom: Class Blogs has features that make it wonderfully useful for any classroom.  Blogging gives your students a place to write where they have an authentic audience.  An audience of one (the teacher) is SO 1995.  To limit your students to that audience is a disservice.  I find that when my students write in blog form, the enthusiasm to write increases, the richness of language increases, and the ideas are communicated clearly.  Obviously that is a bit of a generalization, I have also had students who don’t want to post for an audience, it makes them nervous to reveal themselves to their classmates in that way.  I let those students blog about topics they are “experts” on as they are building confidence in their learning process.   Students can blog to reflect on learning; write creatively; write as if they were a historical character, famous inventor, or a favorite literary figure; to chronicle learning (e-portfolio style); or to invite others on a journey of inquiry with them.

Using this type of social media in the classroom is important. It helps students learn digital citizenship, Internet safety, and netiquette in an authentic environment that goes beyond the rules and actually lets them practice it.

The additional features of Class Blog make it the perfect place to organize your classroom.  Post assignments in Class Blogs as a learning log, as students respond, your original post will get a pingback making it easy to track students progress. Class Blog also makes it easy to extend learning beyond the four walls of your classroom using the virtual classroom features.  Create meeting rooms to extend classroom discussions, offer additional learning support, or as a place to prepare students for learning.  Class Blogs makes it easy to include podcasts, videos, webcams, private chat areas, desktop sharing in your virtual classroom.

Tips: Class Blogs does not have an age requirement, this means that it is available to k-12 (and beyond) education.  Registration does require an email address.  If your students do not have email addresses, you can create accounts on their behalf.  With Class Blogs you can create unlimited class and student blogs, unlimited free classes/courses, and unlimited free virtual classrooms.  Be sure to check out the feature page for a comprehensive list of the awesome features on Class Blogs, you won’t believe what all is included!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using the Class Blogs in your classroom!

 

Paper Tweeting: Social Media in the Classroom

Kelly Tenkely17 Comments on Paper Tweeting: Social Media in the Classroom6016 views

I’m currently working with an elementary and middle school to roll out a school wide social media campaign.  I have had a lot of questions about this so I thought I would make a video sharing how that decision was made and how we are approaching it.  Yes, I did film this video today…although the calendar says spring, Colorado woke up to SNOW this morning-hence the furry hooded sweater. 🙂

If you don’t have time to watch the video, here are the highlights:

  • This private school decided to roll out a social media campaign to let the local community learn more about the school in hopes of increasing enrollment numbers.  I let the superintendent know that Twitter was not a marketing tool, people won’t follow accounts that are constantly broadcasting information.  That being said, stories are compelling and people will follow accounts that tell a compelling story, and that invite conversation.
  • The most compelling story in a school comes from the students. Letting  students be the voice of the school does a few things: 1. It gives students a place to reflect on their learning. 2. It gives the community and parents an authentic look at what is happening in the classroom.  3. It allows us to model proper use of social media as we use Twitter WITH students. 4. It gives students a sense of pride in their school and a sense of ownership over what they do there.
  • Because this campaign is being rolled out with elementary students, there are some special considerations.  Twitter clearly states in its terms of use that users must be 13 years old or older.  Students don’t have an individual Twitter account; instead, each classroom has an account.  Classes will Tweet using the interactive whiteboard as a class.
  • The administration wanted to make this process as simple as possible for teachers. They asked me to create a Twitter account for every classroom, specialist, and administrator in the building.
  • The administration made this campaign optional for teachers.  This was HUGE, instead of it feeling like one more thing added to the teacher’s already full plates, they got to make the decision to opt in.  Out of 30 elementary teachers 20 are attending our Tweetup tomorrow!
  • The communications manager of the school is running the main School account.  She will be following a list of all of the classrooms tweeting and re-tweet the best of the best.  The main school account will be the “face” of the school on the Internet.
  • The administration is Tweeting as well, they have a unique and different view of the school than the classroom teachers and students do.
  • I created several lists for teachers to follow, there is a list for every discipline and age group as well as a list of other classes and student authors that tweet.
  • I linked every Twitter account with a Facebook Fan page for the classroom.  I turned off all commenting features so that (for now) teachers don’t have to keep track of both platforms.  The Facebook Fan Page will most likely be accessed by parents who do not use Twitter so that they can still receive class updates.

 

Tomorrow I am holding a Tweetup. I BEGGED that this not look like typical tech training.  You know the kind…tired teachers crammed in the computer lab at the end of the day to learn a new tool.  Been there, done that. Unless you are a mega tech geek like me, you just really don’t appreciate those kind of trainings!  I was afraid if we approached this training the way we approach all other trainings, teachers would instantly have to get past that barrier.  Instead, we are meeting at a local coffee shop after school.  I sent out fun invitations and made sure teachers knew that this was a SOCIAL event.  After all, we are talking social media!

Because I know this staff well (I worked with them for 7 years, these are my friends!), I also have the benefit of knowing how comfortable they are with technology.  I suspect that they are pretty typical of school staffs everywhere.  There are some who are very comfortable with new technologies, and some who have trouble filling out a login form on their own.  I didn’t want technology to be a barrier for those who aren’t comfortable with it, so I decided to steal an idea from my friend @mcteach.  She does a paper blogging project with her students where they learn to blog and comment using paper before technology even enters the picture.  I LOVED the idea and thought it could be adapted for my Twitter Tweetup.  I made a video describing my paper tweeting method below.

 

 

Again, if you don’t have time for the video, here are the highlights:

  • I created a paper Twitter wall on chart paper that looks pretty similar to the actual Twitter wall (if I do say so myself).  This will be up on the wall at the coffee shop during our tweetup.  The Twitter wall is blank, ready for teacher tweets to fill it up.
  • I made a name tag for each teacher with their @username.  You know those “hello my name is”?  Yeah, it is that with their twitter handle.  Rule of the day, if you are mentioning someone by name, there must be an @ preceding it 🙂
  • I have a stack of 10 sticky notes for each teacher with their twitter handle and “picture” at the top of the note and “140” at the bottom.  This is where teachers will compose their tweets.  The sticky note messages get stuck to the Twitter wall chart I created.  My hope is that teachers will begin to understand the public nature of Twitter in a concrete way.
  • I have regular envelopes that I have written DM on.  Teachers can use these to deliver DM’s to a friend.  Again, I wanted a concrete way of understanding the difference between a DM (Direct Message) and an @ reply.
  • Since tomorrow is #edchat, I’ll be prompting discussion for our paper tweetup with the #edchat topic tomorrow.  This will give me the opportunity to talk about RT (retweets) and hashtags.
  • In addition to #edchat discussion, I’ll ask teachers to share something that happened in their classrooms today as a tweet, helping them begin thinking about how to use Twitter in their classrooms.
  • I’ll encourage teachers to try a paper tweetup with their students so that they understand Twitter before using the technology.
  • After our paper tweeting session, I’ll let teachers hop on to Twitter and try it out while I am there to answer questions and help with any technical difficulties.  I really don’t want to focus on the tool, but on the connections and conversations that Twitter enables.  Twitter makes it easy to do this because the platform is so simple to use.

 

I think tomorrow will be fun, I’ll be sure to take some pictures and share them! If you missed them the first time around, here is a link to the Twitter posters that I created for the classrooms.

Diipo and Edmodo: A Social Network for Classrooms

Kelly Tenkely13 Comments on Diipo and Edmodo: A Social Network for Classrooms4838 views

What it is: If you’re like me, you can think of hundreds of ways that social networks could be used positively in the classroom. The problem: most of us can’t access said networks in our classrooms-blocked by over zealous filtering! Not to worry, there are some great classroom alternatives including Diipo and Edmodo.

Diipo is a social network created specially for education.  I learned about this particular tool from @nottil, a high school student in Virginia (thanks @nottil!).  Diipo makes it easy to communicate with your students, connect with other educators, and other classes.  The interface is similar in feel to a Facebook or Twitter making it easy for students and teachers to pick up and start using right away.  We are talking LOW learning curve here. Diipo has dashboards and apps that keep students up-to-date, help them get questions answered, and let them collaborate on blogs and group projects.  Workpages keep students organized from project to project.  Direct messaging features let students start a private conversation with classmates and teachers.  Online project notebooks let students work together and share the information they collect in one, centralized location.  An educator community lets teachers share best practices, educational content, brainstorm for collaborative projects, and pen pal programs between classes.  A class roster makes it easy for teachers and students to communicate with each other. A built in microblogging platform lets students start a conversation, ask questions, and actively participate in class discussions.  Students can build blogs directly in Diipo to share thoughts, reflect on learning, and write collaboratively.  Teachers and students can upload and share documents, links, and resources with classmates or the entire class.  Every conversation and post is archived and searchable making it easy to catch up or find something later.  Students can also tag messages, content, and workpages to make it easier to organize and find content.  The Diipo platform is wonderfully all-inclusive!  Diipo is intended for students 13 years and older.

Edmodo is a social networking platform for classrooms that has been around longer.  Edmodo is a free, secure social network for teachers, students, and schools.  It provides classrooms with a safe way to connect and collaborate by offering them place to exchange ideas, share content, and access homework, grades and school notices.  Edmodo is accessible in any browser and from any mobile device.  Like Diipo, Edmodo allows teachers to post messages, discuss classroom topics, assign and grade classwork, share resources and materials, and network and exchange ideas with peers. Edmodo does not have an age limit, students under the age of 18 must have a parent or guardian read the terms of service prior to use. To learn more about how Edmodo came to be, take a min to watch the video below:

 

While Diipo is in beta, Edmodo has stood the test of time and is used in classrooms around the world.

How to integrate Diipo and Edmodo into the classroom: Social networking is a wonderful way to support your students in their learning.  It is also a way for students to take charge and support their own learning by collaborating with classmates.  Use Diipo or Edmodo to organize your class, support students, connect students in a collaborative study group, and to share materials with your students.  This is a great one-stop-shop for classroom communication and resources.  Upload lessons and handouts, websites and links used in class, videos, and any other materials students may find useful to Diipo or Edmodo.   Use the Diipo blogging platform to encourage your students to write for an audience, reflect on learning, continue class discussion, and write collaboratively.

Both Diipo and Edmodo promote anytime, anyplace learning-reinforcing once again that learning happens outside of the four walls of the classroom.

Using social networks in the classroom provides you with the opportunity to model proper use of social networking, digital citizenship, and teach Internet safety in an authentic environment.

Tips: Edmodo has excellent support and training, be sure to sign up for their free webinars!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Diipo and Edmodo in your classroom!

Digital Book about Energy

Kelly Tenkely2 Comments on Digital Book about Energy3861 views

What it is: IKT FOR LAGET out of Norway has created a fantastic ebook all about Energy.  This is more than just a book that happens to be online (I know we have all seen those!), this is an interactive book that is great for ALL of your learners.  In addition to the text and bold images in the book, there is an audio feature on every page that will read the text to students.  Click on the video icon to watch a related video.  Students can even download related images from some of the films for use in their own projects where they reflect or construct their own understanding. Additional resources and links are provided within the book for teachers, parents, and students.  All of the additional content “enlarges the book” into something really useful for learning and exploring.   This is a big step in the right direction for ebooks– no more trying to pass off a PDF as a digital ebook, this is the real deal.

How to integrate the Digital Energy Book into the classroom: If you study energy in your science curriculum this ebook is a super resource and addition to your classroom library.  Set up the ebook on classroom computers during independent reading time for some non-fiction reading material.  The ebook is great for all levels of readers, confident readers can read the book independently while struggling readers may want to read along with the audio.  Use the ebook as a “big book” using an interactive whiteboard or projector connected computer to read about energy as a class.

Tips: Right now the digital book uses Flash and is only available on a Mac or PC.  Work is being done to bring the ebook to the iDevices!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using the Digital Energy Book in your classroom!



My Online Neighborhood: Internet Safety

Kelly Tenkely2 Comments on My Online Neighborhood: Internet Safety3070 views

What it is: I learned about this gem of a video today from my friend @techfacil.  My Online Neighborhood is a video created by Common Sense Media.  The video is a great way to introduce kindergarten through third grade students to online safety.  I like how this video compares the online world with the real world.  This helps students understand the rules in a way that goes deeper than just following the rules because we say so.  The video approaches Internet safety in a fun way through the eyes of a student, as you will see above, it is very well done!

How to integrate My Online Neighborhood into the classroom: My Online Neighborhood is a nice entry point for teaching Internet safety.  Use the video to spur classroom discussions about online safety.  The video also makes a nice lead in to the Internet safety lessons from Common Sense Media on Digital Life (sending email, online communities, rings of responsibility), Privacy (follow the digital trail), Connected Culture (screen out the mean, show respect online, power of words, group think, writing good emails), and Respecting Creative Work (whose is it, anyway?).  These units and lessons are detailed, fun, and get right to the heart of the matter of raising digitally responsible citizens.  The lesson plans are leveled by grade and can be used for kindergarten through fifth grade.

Tips: There are some fantastic parent tips and resources on the Common Sense Media website, be sure to share them with your families so that online safety is modeled and reinforced at home.

Please leave a comment and share how you are using My Online Neighborhood in your classroom!

Educational Framework: Input welcome!

Kelly Tenkely21 Comments on Educational Framework: Input welcome!3548 views

I am currently working on a website for the school (Anastasis) I am starting.  This is a different model than most parents will be familiar with so I am finding myself working on ways to flesh out just what learning looks like in this new model.  One of the pages I have created is titled “Educational Framework”.  I would love your input on the descriptions below as well as the graphic.

The framework below illustrates the educational approach of Anastasis and the synthesis of:

Inquirers: The combination of child, teacher, mentors, family, and friends in pursuit of a question.

The Cycle of Inquiry: The cycle that lead learners use to facilitate learning; inquire, investigate, plan, customize instruction, collaborate, construct meaning, create, evaluate, reflect and revisit.

Academic Content Areas: Nine areas are explored to help learners achieve standards and developmental benchmarks; language arts, social studies, science, mathematics, physical awareness/health/play, spirituality, social/emotional learning, arts, and global citizenship.

Learning Habits/Disciplines: Distinct habits and disciplines are assumed by the students as they approach learning. These disciplines support and assist the learning process.

Technology: Technology permeates learning in this blended learning model. Students use technology to build: functional skills, effective communication, collaboration, ability to find and select information, critical thinking/evaluation, cultural/social understanding, eSafety, and creativity.

Learning Genome: The Learning Genome makes it possible to customize and personalize learning for every student by taking into account; the student profile (interests, passions, developmental levels, learning styles, abilities, etc.), the school profile (resources available), the individualized learning plan (created by lead learner, student, and parents), Standards/benchmarks/scope and sequence, and tagged curriculum.

In addition to the graphic above, I have created an animation of the same graphic.  In the animation, each section builds on the previous section so that the graphic is revealed in manageable pieces.  The audience for the graphic is parents so I am trying to keep educational jargon to a minimum.

I realize there is a lot of information on the Graphic but really want to paint a picture of what I am referring to under each heading…I don’t want to assume that parents will fill in those blanks on their own.

So, what do you think? Suggestions and recommendations are welcome!

Teacher Tuesday: Sir Ken Robinson, Learning Without Frontiers

Kelly Tenkely1 Comment on Teacher Tuesday: Sir Ken Robinson, Learning Without Frontiers12424 views

Sometimes it is important to just take a minute for yourself.  I know as teachers we aren’t very good at doing that, so today I am giving you an excuse…after all, it is #teachertuesday!  Last week Sir Ken Robinson spoke at Learning Without Frontiers, the resulting video is a must watch.  Go grab yourself a snack, put your feet up and prepare to be inspired and challenged!

 

I am currently working on a platform (Learning Genome) that will make it possible to personalize learning for every student, so as soon as Robinson went there I was all ears.  Here is a break down of that portion:

  • Education must be personal because children are individuals.  All children have different aptitudes, interests, and passions.  It is our duty to connect children with their own sense of possibility.
  • Human resources are like natural resources, they are often buried deep and have to be exposed.
  • We don’t know what we are capable until we have the opportunity to find out.
  • A narrow (boxed) curriculum cuts off opportunities because talents have been segregated off from the curriculum.
  • Students conclude that they aren’t good at anything because they don’t find success in the narrow scope of what is required of them.
  • Personalized education puts children in touch with their real capabilities, gives children a sense of creativity, and gives students a sense of confidence.
  • Education must be personal, economic, and cultural.

What challenges do you find in personalizing learning for your students?  Do you believe personalizing learning is important enough to take on that challenge?

Grade Trac: Piles of paper to grade got anyone down?

Kelly Tenkely30 Comments on Grade Trac: Piles of paper to grade got anyone down?7810 views

How many of you are stuck in a school *wishing* that you had more technology…especially one to one technology?  How many of you look longingly at the schools that are able to use Google forms or Turn It In to make assessment easier and more useful?

Grade Trac is a program that makes grading faster, easier, and provides teachers with more useful information to guide planning and learning in the classroom.

Grade Trac automates paper grading while offering increased accuracy and provides teachers with useful information that can be used to plan learning.  Grade Trac has shown to reduce grading time by 30% to 70%!  Pretty amazing…anyone need a weekend back?

Grade Trac automates the grading process of paper assignments, quizzes, and tests. Multiple choice questions get graded automatically, written or short answer style questions can be graded using the Grade Trac Rapid grading feature online.  Students grades and benchmark scores are automatically computed and displayed in Grade Trac.  These grades and benchmark scores can be printed for easy gradebook entry.  Teachers can quickly view a summary for an entire class…this makes it easy to determine what reteaching or next steps are necessary for learning.  After an assignment/quiz/test has been scored, teachers can generate a PDF hand back for students showing their answer, the correct answer, and comments.

Grade Trac also provides a place for teachers to create custom answer sheets with a mix of multiple choice, short answer, and essay questions.  The answer sheets can be enhanced with question text and pictures.  Everything you build in Grade Trac can be reused by you, and shared with other teachers in your school.

Grade Trac is brilliant in the way that it works.  First, teachers create an assignment, quiz, or assessment using the Grade Trac performance benchmark selection and question editor.  The assignment/quiz/assessment gets printed.  Students fill out the paper assignment/quiz/assessment.  These assignments/quizzes/assessments get scanned and all of their information is instantly uploaded to the Grade Trac website.  Any multiple choice questions get graded automatically.  The Rapid grading feature is my personal favorite- this is for grading written answers.  Let me give you an example of how this works, let’s say that we have 5 written questions.  Answer #1 shows up below the answer key for the first student.  The teacher can add comments and annotations as they grade.  Then they can view the next student’s answer for #1, and the next students, and so on until ALL of #1 is graded.  Fantastic!  This makes grading SO much easier.  Anyone else ever been grading and lost track of the number you were on and then suddenly wonder why a student is getting EVERY answer wrong?  (At least I hope I’m not the only one who has done that!).  When you are finished with the grading, you get a great summary of each question.  This is an at-a-glance resource for finding out what needs to be re-taught and where students need more challenge.  The grade summary helps guide your lesson planning.  The student hand back can be in pdf form or printed with all of the comments and annotations.

Essentially Grade Trac takes all of that paper grading and automates it, letting you grade it online.  No more taking stacks and stacks of paper home to grade.  Grade Trac puts everything online so all you need is an internet connection.  Pretty cool huh?  So, no more pouting that your school is in the dark ages, take this step and help them make inroads into the 21st century all ready!

Grade Trac was created by a parent of one of my students, he asked if I knew of 5 teachers that might like to try Grade Trac for FREE?  He would love to hear stories from the trenches of how Grade Trac works for you, what you might change, add, or delete from the program.  Not only will you get to use Grade Trac for free, you will get one on one support, guidance, training,  and fantastic customer support.

If you would like to be one of the five to test out Grade Trac at your school, leave a comment with your name, grade you teach, where you teach, and a way to contact you.  Five of you lucky ducks are going to say goodbye to piles of paper and use Grade Trac for FREE!

Zoodles: a kid safe mode for every device

Kelly Tenkely2 Comments on Zoodles: a kid safe mode for every device9779 views

What it is: Zoodles makes it possible to have a “kid safe” mode on every device: Mac, PC, iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch and Android.  Zoodles includes wonderful features for technology use in the classroom and at home.  With Zoodles every child has their own “playground” space (login) that they access by clicking on their picture.  A parent dashboard lets teachers (or parents) customize Zoodles to meet the needs of students. Parents and teachers can clearly see where a student spends their time, what their interests are, and what subjects they have been practicing.  Every game in Zoodles has been previewed by experts and is rated based on it’s educational merit.  Parent play-along mode makes it possible for parents or teachers to guide the learning experience.  The interface is focused on kids and is extremely intuitive.  There are no distracting “extras” in the navigation or URLs where students can get sidetracked or lost.  The content in Zoodles adapts to each child’s age and ability level so they are constantly being challenged and engaged. There are thousands of educational games built into Zoodles…students always have something new and challenging to interact with.  Zoodles also gives students access to fun educational videos.  Zoodles is geared for toddler to third grade (8 year old) students.  You can peruse the games included in Zoodles by clicking on the “Games” tab on the site.  There are games for: cognitive development, creative development, life skills, math, reading, science, and social studies. The games and videos in Zoodles are pulled from several places on the Internet.  What makes Zoodles a great tool is the ability to guide students in their learning, easily find quality educational content, scale as a student is ready, and keep ads blocked and hidden.

How to integrate Zoodles into the classroom: Zoodles is great for classroom computers and devices in the primary classroom.  It provides students with access to quality learning games and content from the Internet without having to sort through the Internet to get to it.  Zoodles is perfect for classroom computers that are used as learning centers.  For the classroom, create 3-5 different accounts.  Instead of basing the accounts on individual students, the accounts can be based on a learning level.  Through the dashboard, teachers can guide the learning that happens in each account.  This keeps your students on task, learning at their level, and engaged in meaningful activities.  Even if you don’t use the Zoodles interface on your computers for students, it is definitely worth a download as a teacher.  The games and videos are broken up into subject areas and age groups.  This makes it easy to find an activity for any learning that you are doing in the classroom.  Use Zoodles as your guide to find great activities and learning games on the web.

Tips: I found Zoodles when searching for a solution for one of the families I teach.  They were looking for a way that all of their kids (2 years old to 8 years old) could use the family computer for fun, safe learning experiences.  This is a great app to recommend to parents who don’t know what they don’t know, but want to provide their kids with virtual learning experiences.  Be sure to recommend it to your students families!  There are premium features that families will LOVE!

Please leave a comment and share how you are using Zoodles!